


Parkway South

by Gleennui



Category: Glee
Genre: Alive Finn Hudson, All of these places are real, Jersey Shore, Multi, Patsy Cline - Freeform, Puck as a grad student, Puck is so emo, implied driving while impaired
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-25
Updated: 2014-12-25
Packaged: 2018-03-03 13:23:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2852318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gleennui/pseuds/Gleennui
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The ocean’s still warm when he steps into it, jeans rolled up into messy cuffs. Puck remembers one of his science teachers saying that water heats up and cools off slowly, and he’s grateful for that because the rest of him can’t stop shivering. Ripping the card into tiny pieces is oddly satisfying, and, one by one, he watches wedding colors <i>she</i> picked get swept into the low tide. Puck saves the very bottom of the card for last, and that part he leaves whole, squinting at it in the moonlight until his eyes start to water. </p><p> </p><p>  <i>Declines with Regrets</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Parkway South

There’s something about driving down the coast at night that makes Puck feel like he’s being swallowed whole. The sky over the ocean makes a giant black wall to his left, broken up only by ferris wheel lights on piers jutting out into the water and some hotels that Puck knows are probably full of the kind of tourists who led their kids spend all day in the arcade. If he squints, the giant sloping dunes almost look like snow drifts, and the thought makes him shiver. With the window down and the sea air rushing in, the entire thing has the effect of making Puck want to just close his eyes and give himself over to the road. 

But he’s stupid over his best friend, not regular stupid, so he just turns the dial on his truck’s old radio with the broken “seek” button and tries to find something that’s going to make the mile markers look a little brighter. Instead, he gets fucking Patsy Cline, like on those tapes his Nana used to keep in the console of her Ford Mercury and sneak into the player when Puck was absorbed with his Pokemon cards. So now in addition to feeling like he’s driving into a vortex, Puck also feels like he’s in some old-timey country song, with his half-rusted truck he bought off some dude in Hazelton and his fucking pitiful pining over someone he can’t have. Hell, maybe he should go full-hog and just start crooning at townie bars. If he ever goes back, eastern PA’s full of them. If not, he can probably find some town in Virginia or somewhere that used to have _industry_ and now has a bunch of people who can’t leave. It’s not like he was married to living in Scranton, anyway. He reaches out instinctively for the guitar case on the seat next to him, and scratches his nail along one of the stickers near the hinge. If Puck never goes home again, at least he won’t be alone. 

It’s the lights of Atlantic City that finally snap Puck out of his daze--the bright of the skyline spilling out over the dunes and illuminating the card that’s been sitting on his dashboard since he threw it there somewhere around Asbury. If there’s an ocean on the other side of the casinos, Puck sure as hell can’t see it, and he decides right there to stop at the next clump of buildings and try to find somewhere to park for the night. 

Puck remembers someone in one of his survey classes talking about an Ocean City, but the dude was from Baltimore, and was always stoned, so maybe he meant somewhere else. Puck’s exhausted, though, even though he knows he won’t sleep, and he needs to get down to the ocean before he gives in and drives the fuck all the way back to Lima like some kind of lovesick idiot like he’s been wanting to do since he mailed the letter. 

He scoops a handful of change out of the crumb-filled ashtray and practically hurls it into the toll booth basket. It’s at least a dollar or two more than necessary, the coins making a rain-rattle noise against the plastic. Puck almost smiles. 

It’s not until he’s approaching the causeway that he realizes the marina’s eerily quiet up ahead, the buildings past it almost completely dark. Puck’s dashboard clock is broken, but when he subtracts the thirteen minutes it’s always fast, it’s still just past 10:00pm. Compared to Atlantic City, the place is downright dead. The muted lights give Puck kind of a weird feeling, like he’s driving into someplace he’s not welcome, but the ocean’s gotta look the same wherever, and maybe at least this way he’ll have some space to sit and think about how he’s ruining the most important relationship of his life. 

Puck’s so busy feeling miserable about himself that he almost misses the giant plastic crab to his left, just over the bridge. It’s a good thing he doesn’t miss it, though, because the giant plastic crab is sitting on top of a bar, and maybe this is where the entire city goes at night, because the parking lot is packed with minivans with hard plastic shells on top that look like clams and stickfigure family stickers on the rear windows. The blinking sign strapped to a truck bed says there’s live music inside, and two-for-one drink specials, and Puck thinks that a couple shots won’t erase the desperate sick feeling that starting clawing at him when he swung the mailbox handle shut, but they probably can’t hurt. 

The bar’s not nearly as crowded as the parking lot would make it seem, and Puck finds an empty stool up against the wall so he can lean back and people-watch. Most of the booths are full of exhausted-looking couples. The stickfigure parents, Puck figures, whose kids are probably asleep in that almost-dark city up ahead. Everyone looks at least a little sunburned and a lot rushed, and Puck has to swallow back a mouthful of bitterness. He signals the bartender over and orders the double Jim Beam on the rocks he got a taste for in undergrad, and when he spies a waitress carrying a tray of burgers the size of his head, he orders one of those, too. He insists on paying for everything immediately, pulling a fistful of fives and ones out of his hip pocket and flattening them as best he can before handing them to the bartender with a grimace that he hopes looks apologetic. 

Puck’s halfway done with his burger, which does taste as good as it looks, despite everything, when a woman slides into the stool next to his, catching her foot on his calf when she has to swivel in her seat. She apologizes with a giggle and leans a hand on his knee until she’s balanced. She smells like a tanning bed and her perfume’s too sweet but when he looks at her full-on she reminds him of Quinn, with the way she’s tucking her blonde hair behind her ear and casting her eyes up at him, like she’s reverent in a way that has everyone fooled. Puck’s gut burns, but he shovels most of the rest of the burger in his mouth anyway, washing it down with the remaining bourbon and signaling for another. 

No part of him wants it. He knows what he wants--wants it so bad he’s running all the fuck away to God knows where to get away from it--and it’s not this. Not here. Not her. But she’s looking at him in that way people tend to look at Puck, and he knows it would be so easy to just forget for a little while. He shotguns his second drink and quirks an eyebrow at her. Her lips are stained red already with the fruity-whatever she was drinking and something about the way her mouth is pulled to the side in a closed half-smile makes Puck’s decision for him. He slams his empty tumbler down on the bar and heads for the door, not needing to look back to know she’s following. 

Puck finally asks about the half-dark city while he’s pulling his truck around to the back of the building, the crushed shells that make up the parking lot grinding under his tires. Some kind of cruel joke, she says, that there’d be no alcohol in a city with eight mini golf courses and five arcades. Fucking Methodists. She laughs and puts her hand on Puck’s bicep. Leave it to Puck to find the one dry town in all of South Jersey. 

 

Puck’s got his hip pressed against the gear shift and his foot jammed up under the glove compartment. His head’s swimming with bourbon but he remembers how to do this part. She’s arching above him and pressing her thighs against his head in a rhythm he meets absentmindedly, and he only half-thinks about the card on his dashboard while her muscles are starting to tense. She tastes like saltwater, and if she knows he’s soft in his jeans, she doesn’t say. 

He waves her off when she reaches for his belt, and wipes his mouth on the collar of his shirt. She’s mostly unapologetic--just pouts at him and kisses him on the cheek when she climbs out of his truck, almost turning her heel on the shell gravel.

Puck heads east as fast as he can as soon as she’s back in the bar, and ends up at an unmetered spot feet from the beach. A lucky break he doesn’t deserve, he thinks, and he briefly wonders if he should sleep jammed up in the cab of his truck, where it smells like sick-sweet perfume and ocean, as some kind of atonement for ruining his best friend’s life. 

He doesn’t sleep in the truck, though--just grabs the Titans hoodie he’s had shoved on the floor of the passenger’s seat since he left Lima for the last time. The sand is cool when he kicks his shoes off, and he pulls the hoodie on with the hood up as far as it can go. If he can’t see anyone, he figures, no one can see _him_ to send him back to wherever he’s supposed to be. And where he’s supposed to be, Puck thinks, is the fucking million dollar question. 

Puck’s stomach starts to churn, from the whiskey and the girl and the way it feels like his head’s going to implode. He spits sour into the sand and scuffs it away with his heel, kicking divots up in random patterns until he feels some of the tension leave his head. With a sigh, Puck eases himself down until he’s sitting, careful not to set his stomach rolling again. 

When he sits, though, the sharp pressure on his hip reminds him that he’d jammed the card into his pocket right before he’d shoved the truck door shut. He almost leaves it there, like maybe if he can walk around with it forever, it’ll postpone the wedding indefinitely, but another part of him wants it gone, and fast. 

The ocean’s still warm when he steps into it, jeans rolled up into messy cuffs. Puck remembers one of his science teachers saying that water heats up and cools off slowly, and he’s grateful for that because the rest of him can’t stop shivering. Ripping the card into tiny pieces is oddly satisfying, and, one by one, he watches wedding colors _she_ picked get swept into the low tide. Puck saves the very bottom of the card for last, and that part he leaves whole, squinting at it in the moonlight until his eyes start to water. 

_Declines with Regrets_

 

Puck sleeps fitfully, tucked up against the boardwalk in the cleanest place he can find, which is still way too close to a pile of unidentifiable garbage. Every time he wakes up, his stomach flips again, and he has to fight the urge to get back in his truck, put fucking Patsy Cline back on, and head south. Maybe to Miami, he thinks, or Key West. Somewhere with non-stop parties and no best friends to fall in love with and ruin their lives. That last thought _keeps_ him awake, and he stumbles back onto the boardwalk just as the sun’s coming up, his pants still rolled up funny and now covered in sand. 

Puck heads north, towards what looks like the actual fun part of the boardwalk. Not that anything sounds like fun to Puck, but at least he’s heading in the direction of coffee and maybe donuts. He shakes his jeans back down as he walks and shoves his hands in his pockets, hunching his shoulders and bracing himself even though it’s not really that cold. The boardwalk slowly widens the farther north Puck goes, and he entertains himself by peeking in the windows of the houses set down at beach level. In front of one of them, a couple older than Puck’s Nana is sitting at a little table and drinking tea, with a real teapot and everything. They wave to Puck and he shrugs his hood off his head to wave back, watching just long enough to see the husband pour the wife her tea. 

The boardwalk feels smaller than Asbury, but Puck’s also not used to being on a boardwalk alone, so he takes his time walking along the ocean and watching the anglers. He’d stopped one of them by the fishing pier and asked about breakfast, and after Puck had dodged a bucket of cut whitefish and an offer to join them, he’d gotten a breakfast recommendation and a fishy-smelling coupon pressed into his palm. Ove’s, and from what Puck can tell, it’s still over a mile from where he’s lazily meandering along the railing. 

He’s trying not to think about it--trying to concentrate instead on the ocean air and the gulls and how someone’s kid keeps screaming hysterically about ice cream at 8am. But it keeps tugging at him. Finn and the wedding and how he’d tried to ignore the feeling in his gut for years. He’d been so close--just two more weeks and the door would have been closed too tight for Puck to even entertain the idea. It could have been Finn idly spinning his wedding ring while they played video games or Finn making “ball and chain” jokes with a grin or Puck dutifully sending anniversary cards every July. It could have been easy to pretend once he had no other choice. 

In the end, it had been Puck’s letterman jacket. Puck’s mother had sent it to Scranton in her ongoing effort to turn Puck’s old room into her Avon headquarters. Puck had almost shoved the jacket in his front closet, but writing on the inside of the collar had caught his eye. 

_To pump us up for the game, Puck!_ Finn had said, pressing a Sharpie into Puck’s palm and uncapping his own. Finn had had to twist himself over Puck to write, pulling the collar back as far as he could without toppling Puck backward or choking him. _Stay still so I can write my thing!_ Finn had huffed, and Puck had tried not to squirm as Finn breathed against the back of Puck’s neck in concentration. 

It was Finn. It had always _been_ Finn, and sitting on his bedroom floor, holding the jacket, the realization had been like a punch in the gut. It had been like nothing to tell himself that he’d never liked Finn’s girlfriends because they’d all been carbon copies of Rachel. Or that he hadn’t wanted to move to Scranton because then Finn would have to find a new roommate. Or that the idea of Finn getting married made him feel sick because they’d be missing out on being single together. 

But once it had hit him--once he had looked at the words on the collar and _felt_ \--he’d known he had to go somewhere that wasn’t Ohio and wasn’t his suddenly too-tiny apartment by the train tracks. Before he could stop himself, he’d thrown his laptop and guitar in his truck and had scribbled a letter to Finn on the free PPL Utilities notepad he’d gotten with his June bill. 

After he’d gotten his thoughts down on paper, mailing the letter had been relatively easy, and it wasn’t until he’d hit Bradley Beach that the guilt had set in. 

By the time Puck passes a huge ferris wheel and finds Ove’s, an employee is just putting a sandwich board outside. Puck grins a little, despite himself, at the “Homemade Apple Cider Donuts” banner, and orders three cinnamon and three powdered, plus the largest coffee they have. He finds a bench facing the ocean just a little farther down the boardwalk, where it’s mostly just runners and cyclists, and digs into his breakfast. 

Puck gets three and a half donuts in before his phone rings. He freezes, powdered sugar all over his hands, and look down at his pocket, like he’s expecting it to tell him who’s calling. He waits long enough that eventually the ringing stops, and he lets out a heavy exhale, sending sugar all over his shirt. Before Puck can finish the donut in his hand, though, the ringing starts again. Puck tosses the rest of the donut to the flock of seagulls that had been eyeing him since he sat down, and fumbles into his pocket. _Restricted_ the display says, and Puck frowns at the screen until the caller hangs up again. 

But almost immediately, the person calls back, and with the sudden worry that he might be ignoring his mother or sister, Puck swipes his thumb to the right. 

“Puck.”

_Oh._

Finn’s voice is soft but worried, the way he’d sounded when he’d first put Rachel on the train and wasn’t sure if he’d done the right thing. It’s almost enough to make Puck want to give in and beg Finn not to get married--to tell Finn to come to this weird Methodist town with him instead. 

“Puck?” 

Puck realizes he still hasn’t actually answered, but when his voice finally comes out, it’s strained and sounds weird to his ears. 

“Hi yeah.” 

“Are you okay? Where are you?” 

Finn sounds even _more_ worried now, if that’s possible, and that alone keeps Puck on the phone. 

“Some Methodist town in Jersey with no booze. But it’s on the beach.” 

“Beach? Puck, I...got your letter.” 

“Yeah,” Puck says, because he doesn’t know what else to say, and Finn doesn’t say anything either for several long moments. 

“Did you mean it?”

Puck pauses, because of all the things he’d expected to hear from Finn, being asked to confirm what he’d written was not one of them. 

“Yeah,” Puck says again, but this time it sounds resigned, even to him. He wonders when Finn’s going to start yelling. 

“Oh.”

“I’m sorry,” Puck blurts, and he almost wishes Finn _would_ yell, because yelling is what Puck deserves, not this sad questioning from sweet Finn. 

“Why are you sorry?” 

Finn sounds genuinely confused, and Puck allows himself a moment to think that maybe he hasn’t ruined Finn’s life after all. 

“For...making you have to deal with that right before your wedding.” Puck stands up and starts pacing crosswise across the boardwalk, ignoring the angry shouts from cyclists.  
“For making me--Puck, what? Are you _kidding_ me? _I’m_ sorry because it sucks to fall in love with your best friend when you think he doesn’t feel the same way and he’s seven hours away and you feel like the shittiest friend on the planet. It sucks, and now you’re with the Lutherans, and I maybe won’t ever see you again.” 

“Methodists, and I’m probably more than seven hours away--” Puck stops and pulls the phone away from his ear, blinking down at it. Finn had said “it sucks,” not “it must suck,” and the trips to visit Finn back in Columbus used to take Puck about seven hours from Scranton in his ancient truck. 

“Finn?” 

“Did you really mean it? You have to tell me.” Puck hasn’t heard Finn sound so young since they were in high school, and he frowns a little, trying not to let himself hope. 

“Yeah. Yeah I did, Finn. Promise.” 

“Okay,” Puck can almost hear Finn nod. “Okay. That’s good.”

Puck waits for something more from Finn, and when the line stays silent, he sighs and leans heavily against the railing. 

“Okay, well, I’m gonna see about maybe getting a room. This place is kind of growing on me and I could really use a shower.” Puck blanches, remembering the girl, and it makes him feel sick again. 

Finn’s goodbye is so faint Puck’s not sure he’s not just hearing things, but he hangs up anyway and starts shuffling back down the boardwalk toward his truck. While he walks, he googles motel rates, and finds one room in an old-looking house for less than his weekly stipend. It’s only a few blocks from where he is when he finds it, so Puck ducks into a five & dime and then jogs the rest of the way, the bag with his new flip flops, board shorts, and Ocean City Beach Patrol tshirt swinging at his side. 

The owner of the house-- _Peggy Ann_ \--eyes Puck’s bag and his sandy jeans, but she takes his deposit in cash and hands him a key to a room on the third floor. Air conditioned, she says, like she’s still not sure what Puck’s deal is, and Puck just nods and smiles in return, because, truth be told, he’s not sure either. 

The room’s smaller than it looked on the site, and all the furniture is wicker, including the bed, but Puck spent the night under the boardwalk, so anything else seems luxurious. He heads straight for the shower, stripping off his clothes as he walks, and turns the water up until he can see steam. 

It takes Puck several washings and two of the tiny travel-sized soaps he found under the sink to finally feel clean. Unfortunately, it also gives him plenty of time to think--something he’d been trying to avoid ever since he left Scranton. There are no dunes in the shower to distract him, and no Quinn-girls and bourbon, either, so he’s stuck with his thoughts until he can get the sand and grime down the drain. First he thinks about Finn, and how Finn’s getting married in two weeks, but that makes the bathtub start to spin, so then he focuses on their conversation. Finn had sounded--Puck can’t really put his finger on it but it was almost--wistful, like he knew exactly how Puck felt, and not just because they know each other better than anyone else. 

Puck’s starting to feel like he’s losing his mind, or maybe like there was something in his bourbon, because there’s no way Finn could know how Puck feels. 

_I'm crazy for trying_  
And crazy for crying  
And I'm crazy for loving you 

Fucking Patsy Cline. Puck twists the faucet shut harder than necessary, mostly to stop his humming, and steps out of the shower, dripping everywhere. He realizes belatedly that the rooms don’t come with towels, and he briefly considers calling downstairs to Peggy Ann before deciding she really might kick out the transient grad student with the mohawk if she finds out he didn’t even have the sense to bring a towel. 

Puck tries to shake himself dry as much as he can, eyeing his dirty clothes for one insane moment before shrugging and just getting under the covers naked and still mostly wet. It’s uncomfortable, but the discomfort only lasts for a few minutes, because the room kind of has that sweet-salty sea smell and that and the hum of the air conditioner have Puck drifting off to sleep almost immediately. 

When Puck wakes up again, the sun is a lot brighter, and he can hear the sounds of flip flops and lifeguard whistles over the window unit. He rolls over, wincing, and blinks himself all the way awake. Puck’s growling stomach and still-clammy sheets make it easy to get up and out of bed, and he pulls his new clothes on in record time, wondering if the ribbon fries place he passed earlier would be open by now. 

It isn’t until Puck grabs his phone to check on the ribbon fry situation that he sees his notification light blinking. 

_Where r the Lutherans. I’ll come find u._

Puck frowns, because Finn’s supposed to be finishing up wedding details. Or, Puck figures, trying to look busy while his fiancee makes the decisions and snaps at him to stay out of the way. 

_Methodists. And don’t. You have to save your money for the wedding._

_Wedding’s off. She cried and yelled but it’s gonna be fine. I’ll tell u when I get there. Tell me where u r._

Puck’s hands are shaking and he sits back down on the bed, ignoring the wet sheets. 

_I’ll msg you the address._ Puck pauses and takes a deep breath before continuing. _What did you tell her_

The wait for a reply feels so long that Puck has to check three times that his text sent, and the eventual notification makes him jump. 

_Told her I had to go home. Wait for me, ok?_

Puck grins. Fucking Patsy Cline. He finds his room key under his jeans and pockets it, whistling to himself as he jogs down the stairs. When he gets to the ribbon fry place, he’ll get two buckets, he decides, even if they have to heat one back up later. He doesn’t think Finn will mind the wait.


End file.
